Stu Shapiro and the Mad Max photo rig at AfrikaBurn

AfrikaBurn has come – and gone – again. Thousands of South Africa’s creatives’, ranging from accountants to artists, doctors to eco warriors, gravitated to Tankwa Town, set deep in the Karoo. The festival was a hip-trippy delight, with a conscience. Much like the infamous Burning Man Festival in the Nevada Desert, the festival promotes authentic expression and a money-free society based on a “giving economy”.

This year, photographer Stu Shapiro gave creative voice to a new form of ‘fashion’ photography. Using the MadMax Walking Fashion Studio that was based on a concept by Sokolsky and Schwabel to create a portable studio, he cruised the desert in search of extraordinary subjects.

With help and technical advice from Orms and Photo-hire in Cape Town, the MadMax portable photographic studio was created. The rig incorporated a new form of technical photography never done in South Africa, conceptualised technically by Shapiro himself to give his images a specific look without the need of post-production or Photoshop. With this walking studio, he was able to record the passing chaos and beauty of this festival with accuracy.

“One innovation found in Nevada which is yet to be spotted amongst the tumbleweed-magic is a mobile photo-shoot. Picture Salvador Dali’s Persistence of Memory in action, now you will be able to watch each character, costume and creation, integrated in their landscape and captured in-passing, by a moving studio.”

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